War Without the Internet? Commandant Says Marines Need to Revive Old-Style Comms

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To get through a war with a near-peer competitor like China or Russia, Marines will need to master basics in communication and navigation, said the Marine Corps commandant.

Rival competitor nation states are challenging U.S. dominance across the globe, Gen. Robert Neller said at a Center for Strategic and International Studies discussion in Washington Thursday.

The past seventeen years, America has been relatively unchallenged heading into the fight. Iraq and Afghanistan have afforded permissible environments for Marine aircraft and shore landings

Service members in those conflicts heavily relied on satellite communications from everything to airstrikes, medical evacuations, to communication back home in the states. There was never a real threat to the network, and “people get used to that certainty,” Neller said.